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Priya Sen

Published on:

August 12, 2026

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Warehousing in Kolkata: Five Questions to Ask Before You Sign

Rate per square foot is the number everyone compares and the one that tells you least. These five questions do more work.

Warehousing quotes are quoted per square foot because it is the easiest thing to put on a page. It is also the line item least likely to explain the difference between two facilities whose totals end up thousands of rupees apart.

These are the five questions we suggest clients ask, in roughly the order they matter.

1. What vehicle can reach the dock, fully loaded?

Not what can reach the gate. A facility that a loaded mini truck cannot get to the door of will quietly add a handling charge to every inbound movement for the life of the agreement.

2. Who handles the goods, and are they counted in or counted out?

There is a real difference between a facility that signs for a sealed consignment and one that counts cartons on arrival. The second costs more and it is very often worth it, because the alternative is discovering a shortage weeks later with no way to establish where it happened.

3. What are the actual access hours?

Ask specifically about evenings, Sundays and the days around festivals. A facility that is technically twenty-four hour but has one person on site after six is not the same as one that can turn a vehicle round at nine at night.

Every warehousing dispute we have been asked to help with came down to hours, handling or stock accuracy. None of them were about the rate per square foot.

4. How is stock accuracy measured, and who pays when it is wrong?

A facility confident in its processes will have a number and will tell you what it is. One that has never measured it will talk about care and diligence instead. Ask for the number.

5. What does leaving look like?

Notice period, the cost of pulling stock out, and who pays for the vehicles that do it. This is worth settling while everybody is still pleased with each other, because it is a genuinely difficult conversation to have later.

One more thing

Visit on a working day, unannounced if they will allow it. A facility on a quiet Tuesday morning tells you very little. The same facility at four in the afternoon during a busy week tells you almost everything.